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I stopped in my LGS the other day after a long absence (almost five years - life has been busy). Anyway, got to chatting with the owner as I noticed that on the 12 tables he has for mini-gaming, 9 were playing Warmahordes, 1 was playing 40k and the other 2 were playing Infinity.

Just out of curiosity, I asked him what his most popular mini games were over the last few years. Ironically, he has a software program that actually tracks all this. After hearing the 2012 feedback (to which he was even surprised because he hadn't looked at the year end consolidation yet) I asked if he had numbers back further. He said yes and asked what year, so I said 2005 (2 years after Warmachine released). We both found the discussion interesting. Here was the feedback.

In 2005, Warhammer 40k and Warhammer were his top two games, with 40k outselling Warhammer almost 3 to 1. Warhammer also outsold Warmachine that year by almost 5 to 1 (he didn't share his actual financials with me).

In 2012, Warmachine was his top selling product line followed by Hordes, then 40k, then Warhammer. But, here was the surprise... When he totaled the sales, Warmachine outsold 40k by almost 4 to 1 and Hordes outsold it by about 2.5 to 1. His comment was he didn't realize until we were chatting by just how much PP had overtaken GW.

I asked why he thought this was, and he just commented that PP is benefiting from the 'GW effect'. I asked what he meant by that (figuring that he was going to directly knock on GW pricing, which he didn't), but he said that kids get into what they see being played. He said that over the last two years, Warmahordes has dominated play and it is easy to get into. Also, the parents felt easier buying their kids Warmahordes because it didn't look so intimidating cost wise. He then recounted a story of how a 15 year old kid came in with his Dad and was looking to get into 40k (Eldar) the kid got the rulebook, codex, hq (farseer & warlocks) and two guardian boxes (basically the minimum starting requirement). When he rang them up and the total came to over $220 (including tax), the father told him to immediately put it back, that he wasn't paying $200 for a bunch of plastic men. So he talked to them about Warmachine and they got a rulebook, army book and battlegroup starter box for just under $100. The father was okay with that and the kid was now a new Warmachine player. Thus why he referred to the GW effect. We talked a few minutes about the $100 GW starter boxes and he said they are only good as long as someone wants to play one of the two armies in the box but with 14 different armies, there was a better chance they were going for the rulebook, codex and a battle force which still puts entry at more than twice what Warmachine is. I found that most interesting.

That is in the space of 7 years. Just out of curiosity, what trends have you all noticed in mini-game play at your LGS in the last five years?

TL;DR: At my LGS, Warmahordes has now overtaken GW as the main played games and the pricing is part of that. What are the trends at your local LGS over the last five years?

Same thing at the store I play at. Was massively GW with no Warmachine in 2005. Now it's WM/H all the time and the GW product takes less than a 5x3 foot section of the wall. One of each starter, a few army books, and a few squad boxes for core units. It used to take up half the shelf space at the store and all you'd be able to play there was 40k, WFB and D&D. Now it's all WM/H and Pathfinder, with a smattering of Flames of War, Dystopian Wars and Infinity.

Just the other day a dad and his 13 year old son came into the store looking for warhammer. Those of us playing WM/H overheard the father say things like "We just can't do this right now" and the PG who was in the store had the kid playing a demo game of WM a few minutes later. He bought a Cryx starter and I helped him clean and assemble the models and we played a game. Then his dad bought a Khador starter right as they left.

Well, mos tof the stores I walk into locally are composed of the following:

1. CCGs at the counter
2. One wall of GW
3. One wall of Warmachine
4. Back wall a mix of Pathfinder, FFG Games, other Board Games, and Flames of War.

Nothing else. It seems this "renaissance" of wargames only happens on the internet.

Back in 2005 we all played GW games and there was this one dude trying to drum up interest in Warmachine.

5th edition, coupled with the preceding dumbing-down phase of Codex design, pretty much killed 40k for my entire generation. Now you see the occasional youngster play, and a few ancient grognards come out of the woodwork at tourneys, but none of the people that used to form my core group play anymore.

Some of us switched to Warmahordes and it ran strong for a while, but lately 3-4 excessively competitive players have driven everybody else off.

On the Fantasy side of things, the players were always extremely cutthroat and they all ragequit when 8th edition hit. They play FOW now.

Infinity is currently on the rise, we'll see how long that goes before the WAACers come along and ruin it.

Same thing in my store.
I feel this is really about accessibility.
WM/H has made a much more accessible game in just about every respect.
I've been mucking around with WM/H for about 6 months now, and 40k for about two and a half years now and WM/H is a much more fluid system IMO.
I still like 40k, but I'm starting to see the appeal of WM/H.

Could it not also be due to where you guys are? You US guys do tend to have a soft spot for your own products (and quite rightly so).

Its one of the really frustrating things about the UK, no one supports our industries and then wonder why they move production to china etc forcing loads of people out of Jobs.

Anyway back on topic.

From my neck of the woods its still 40k/Fantasy that are top with hardly any mention of WM/H

I don't know it's necessarily because the US favors US-based companies and game systems. From what I've heard, WH40K is hugely popular here in the States, particularly when it comes to space marines.

I only head to my local FLGS on Warmachine night, so I've never seen what the store looks like on 40K evenings, but I know that the owner takes pre-orders on new 40K releases, and is almost always completely sold out on release day. So there has to be a pretty decent contingent of 40K players around as well.

Personally, I played 40K and Warhammer between about '97 and '03. Got into Warmachine around 2006 and have been playing on and off ever since. Last summer/fall I briefly got interested in Orks, but the costs are just so daunting that I still haven't actually played a game of 6th edition. I think I currently own about 500 points of orks, but I don't yet have the 6th edition rulebook. $80 for the base rules hurts in the wallet. I'd estimate that I put about $180 into minis+codex, and I know for a fact that I don't have nearly enough of an amy to play anything decent with. Never really met a 40K player that's willing to do small 500 point games, either.

It boils down to advocates for the game system. If there are enthusiastic people pushing the game, it will pull people in. WMH had difficulty getting established in my area because the first Press Ganger was convinced the best way to demo WM was to kick your face in and played up the worst aspects of "Play like you have a pair" mentality stressed early on in MK1. He was kicked out of my FLGS after throwing a fit over losing tables to a MtG per-release. A couple years later after MK2 came out, a new Press Ganger came in and really started pushing the game. Was on par with 40k till he was actually hired by PP and left for Seattle. Game withered again. See a couple people playing, but nothing more then 2 - 4 people at any time of the week. From what I understand, there are several players searching for a store to do a game night, but they want Friday night and all game stores in the area do MtG Friday Night gaming and that fills all the tables out.
40k still has a strong showing with 12 tables on league night and 3 - 6 tables other nights. Fantasy fills out 3 - 6 on the weekend. Both systems have some very enthusiastic people pushing the leagues.
I don't see any young people playing fantasy, but do see them playing 40k. New players in Fantasy are normally post college.

Warmahordes has no real following here. Infinity and other small games are on the rise, 40k and Fantasy still do well all in all. The advocacy theory has strong evidence. Those games that have strong proponents are indeed played here. Godslayer is starting to have more and more followers here.

My FLGS posts it.
Warhammer has been the top Table top war games for the last two years
Warmachine is catching up. I was actually there today and over heard the staf talking. They are all Warmachine players(no one in the store played any Warhammer). Which is all fine with me, I don't get a damn. but they sad how if someone is looking into getting into Warhammer, they will push Warmachine on them because it is better. It saddens me because out player base is dieing. And the store owners likes this. He pretty much said Warhammer 40k is sucking.
And he wonders why we all buy online.

I honestly can't quote statistics for my store, as I only moved here a couple years ago and it seems like the big changes for a lot of stores started happening around then. They also play Warmachine and Warhammer on different days. anecdotally, my store does official Warmachine nights every week,but only has one day a month for Warhammer.

Whenever I go to my hometown next (probably next Winter, though maaaybe this Summer), I intend to check the local stores and ask about it.

I do have to imagine it's much easier to get people to start playing Warmachine or Malifaux or Dystopian Wars (assuming they have support in the local community) than Warhammer simply due to cost of entry; Most of these games can be started for $100 or less, regardless of which faction you pick, whereas if you want to play anything other than Dark Angels or Chaos Space Marines in 40K, or High Elves or Skaven in Fantasy, the start up costs are staggering. Even then I don't think the High Elf and Dark Angel forces are 100% legal right out of the box and will require the player to buy at least one more unit.

We've got far more Warmachine players, and for awhile PP outsold GW but recently GW has been selling more. Though I think that has a lot to do with one of the Warmachine guys apparently having a distributor license or something and buying stuff for himself and some others at wholesale price so people are buying less stuff from the store directly.

My FLGS has migrated back to 40k. If I drop in for a game, there's always about half a dozen 40k games going on, and maybe 1 Warmahordes game.

When I asked one of the regulars about how many Infinity players they get while he was playing a game of Warmahordes, he said 'On and off, just like this game'.

They do, however, have leagues for various games, and they always seem to get enough people for anything.

I wonder, Will PP ever turn into another GW? Will they turn into a players fear of a company that just cares only about its product and nothing more?

Gaming is usually regional and, as has been pointed out, has a portion of popularity driven by advocates. It is still more difficult to start a non-mainstream game (no matter how enthusiastic the advocate) if there are entrenched community players of other systems that refuse to play anything new.

Also, it would be interesting to see Dakkaite locations other than national level esp. stateside to get a better anecdotal feel.

One of the many shops around my area has nearly stopped ordering GW stuff, as it doesnt move so well... Last time I stopped in, they had 3/4 of the Infinity line, 90% of the major Malifaux stuff (notably their paper terrain, and all the books), and a host of other stuff that wasnt there previously... I asked what the deal was, and they were saying that enough guys who used that store asked the owner to order things for other games, particularly Infinity and Malifaux that he went ahead and did it, apparently things have been going swimmingly with that choice.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I wonder, Will PP ever turn into another GW? Will they turn into a players fear of a company that just cares only about its product and nothing more?

Possibly. That Matt Wilson has been copyrighting his new material in his name instead of PP may indicate he is looking to sell PP. He and his wife have been running the company for a decade now and pretty sure the idea of selling and being able to enjoy the fruits of their labor hasn't crossed their mind. Heck, they live in LA, not Seattle. They may be already trying to get out.

Discussing with an older gamer, 50+ age, he said PP is where GW was prior to Bryan Ansell's buyout from Steve Jackson. It has reached a level of expansion and any further expansion will require a significant investment in the level of millions. To get that kind of money will require large investors that want a return on their money. Rick Priestly pointed out once the bankers came in at GW, the demand for constantly increasing revenues began and thus the regular price increases. I don't buy it fully, but given PP still has trouble meeting demand means they haven't been able to or want to expand production.

Back to the talk of advocates, one that GW did that I thought was stupid was the dropping of Outriders. They were definitely the advocates the game needed.

Wayshuba wrote:
I stopped in my LGS the other day after a long absence (almost five years - life has been busy). Anyway, got to chatting with the owner as I noticed that on the 12 tables he has for mini-gaming, 9 were playing Warmahordes, 1 was playing 40k and the other 2 were playing Infinity.

Just out of curiosity, I asked him what his most popular mini games were over the last few years. Ironically, he has a software program that actually tracks all this. After hearing the 2012 feedback (to which he was even surprised because he hadn't looked at the year end consolidation yet) I asked if he had numbers back further. He said yes and asked what year, so I said 2005 (2 years after Warmachine released). We both found the discussion interesting. Here was the feedback.

In 2005, Warhammer 40k and Warhammer were his top two games, with 40k outselling Warhammer almost 3 to 1. Warhammer also outsold Warmachine that year by almost 5 to 1 (he didn't share his actual financials with me).

In 2012, Warmachine was his top selling product line followed by Hordes, then 40k, then Warhammer. But, here was the surprise... When he totaled the sales, Warmachine outsold 40k by almost 4 to 1 and Hordes outsold it by about 2.5 to 1. His comment was he didn't realize until we were chatting by just how much PP had overtaken GW.

I asked why he thought this was, and he just commented that PP is benefiting from the 'GW effect'. I asked what he meant by that (figuring that he was going to directly knock on GW pricing, which he didn't), but he said that kids get into what they see being played. He said that over the last two years, Warmahordes has dominated play and it is easy to get into. Also, the parents felt easier buying their kids Warmahordes because it didn't look so intimidating cost wise. He then recounted a story of how a 15 year old kid came in with his Dad and was looking to get into 40k (Eldar) the kid got the rulebook, codex, hq (farseer & warlocks) and two guardian boxes (basically the minimum starting requirement). When he rang them up and the total came to over $220 (including tax), the father told him to immediately put it back, that he wasn't paying $200 for a bunch of plastic men. So he talked to them about Warmachine and they got a rulebook, army book and battlegroup starter box for just under $100. The father was okay with that and the kid was now a new Warmachine player. Thus why he referred to the GW effect. We talked a few minutes about the $100 GW starter boxes and he said they are only good as long as someone wants to play one of the two armies in the box but with 14 different armies, there was a better chance they were going for the rulebook, codex and a battle force which still puts entry at more than twice what Warmachine is. I found that most interesting.

That is in the space of 7 years. Just out of curiosity, what trends have you all noticed in mini-game play at your LGS in the last five years?

TL;DR: At my LGS, Warmahordes has now overtaken GW as the main played games and the pricing is part of that. What are the trends at your local LGS over the last five years?

This, exactly to a T.

Our local stores at the time had other additional issues, but the effect was about the same.

Three states, same issue. Then there was the economy, that stepped up pretty much everything.

Warmahordes is already in the same boat as GW though. The last guys I priced local were sitting at 89.00 for a squad box of ten guys.

Needless to say I wanted to smash someone over that one.

They seem to sell a few, though. seeing as there are some on fridays that still show up.

Most ave thier guys from before the new price hikes, but from what I see, the move to plastics didn't do anything that the intent was originally for.

Prices are still the same, if not higher.

Gaming is becoming more diverse, though. So when your seeing the spread from all geners, I guess we can tank GW and Warmahordes for something.

More choices, more games, nothing wrong with that.

Depends on Which ten guys. Their upcoming ten and thirteen man Winterguard boxes are both only fifty. The ~$80+ units tend to be the more parts heavy knights and such with more or larger parts.

Don't think there's anything that went up in price when switching to plastic. Most everything stayed the same price per box, but shifted to a five or ten man box, instead of three or six.

My area is all over the place. Our local store owners are not huge fans of GW corporate. They've been screwed many a time on orders, "missing" releases, etc. As a result, they do everything they can to push 3rd party systems. Both have a strong 40k presence, but almost all players have the what I like to call "I play 40k and..." syndrome. Basically, everyone has some 40k stuff, so it's the easiest to find a game for. However, many people find the prices a bit daunting, and start looking into other systems, depending on what they like. Cutthroat tourney players are migrating to Warmachine/hordes thanks to the ruleset, others (like myself) are migrating to games like Bolt Action and FoW due to time setting and scale. Others are getting into infinity, dust, and that star wars dogfighting game. Every time a new codex comes out or a new price increase pops up, you start to hear more "man, I really need to get started on my other games." I highly doubt the switch will be overnight, but I see it gradually going that way a bit more every day.

Basically, everyone plays 40k right now because we already have the stuff for it. Give us a few years and a few more price changes, and I'll have a feeling it'll start becoming "I play bolt action, and 40k occasionally if somebody wants a game" or "I play Warmachine and dust my 40k stuff occasionally when I'm feeling nostalgic". The hostile nature GW has had to our local stores has pretty much killed any desire they have to keep their 40k communities going. I'm pretty sure if they could switch to other companies and drop GW tomorrow with no penalties they'd do it in a heartbeat.

It's still very much GW and historics over here (Scotland/UK). I think I've seen one RPG store with Warmachine stuff, and no infinity anywhere. I try to go to most of the local conventions and it's the same story; lots of GW resellers (most 2nd hand though), and lots of historics, but very little else in terms of sci-fi.

Herzlos wrote:
It's still very much GW and historics over here (Scotland/UK). I think I've seen one RPG store with Warmachine stuff, and no infinity anywhere. I try to go to most of the local conventions and it's the same story; lots of GW resellers (most 2nd hand though), and lots of historics, but very little else in terms of sci-fi.

You shoud try salute, great way of getting into all scifi trends etc.

When I came back to Norway in 2009, there were more or less two games being played in Oslo, WHFB (biggest) and 40k. There were a few FOW players around, but most of them were focused on their little FOW island in Drammen. There was a general feeling of decline, however. WHFB was flagging slightly.

At the recent Norwegian Nationals, We had 75 (81 sign-ups) WHFB players, 39 (41 sign-ups) WM/H players and 28 40k players. 40k should probably have been bigger (40 would not be unreasonable) they had some issues with communication, sadly. Overall, its seems like the growth of "other games" have benefited the GW game community as well, as increased miniature exposure and con organization helps to get their guys back. We have never had so many miniatures gamers at one con in Norway before.

In our local store, WM/H dominates. A typical wednesday game night has 3-5 WM/H tables going and 1-2 40k/Fantasy tables going. Infinity also has a showing (with one exception they all play WM/H as well, so it takes one out) and there is the occasional Mordheim, Dystopian Wars and Bolt Action game. At the local club, WM/H has much less presence since game night is fridays and the players are on average older - they spend fridays with their families. It recently moved to tuesdays since it turns out a lot of other players also have families. Let's see what happens.

Overall, getting WM/H to where it currently is at in Norway has been a lot of work and enthusiasm. Advocates is definitely necessary. The store miniature guys play WM/H, 40k, Fantasy and Dystopian Wars, so they are hardly very biased toward one system, but the WM/H/Infinity/other games people have a really good relationship with them, which helps a lot.

 NAVARRO wrote:

Herzlos wrote:
It's still very much GW and historics over here (Scotland/UK). I think I've seen one RPG store with Warmachine stuff, and no infinity anywhere. I try to go to most of the local conventions and it's the same story; lots of GW resellers (most 2nd hand though), and lots of historics, but very little else in terms of sci-fi.

You shoud try salute, great way of getting into all scifi trends etc.

I've been toying with visiting salute, but it'd involve flights and overnight stays so becomes painfully expensive even before I go mad at the stalls

 Laughing Man wrote:
Don't think there's anything that went up in price when switching to plastic. Most everything stayed the same price per box, but shifted to a five or ten man box, instead of three or six.

I think the worst I've heard of is Winterguard Rifle Corps which remain $50 after switching to plastic, which is most odd because the thirteen man Winterguard Infantry is also $50 despite having three more guys than the ten man Rifle Corps.

See, That is what Ticks me off, People say PP is cheaper, it is not. I still see gigantically stupid prices. It may only costt 100$ to get in, But it will cost you the same to expand as it would a GW game.

Herzlos wrote:

 NAVARRO wrote:

Herzlos wrote:
It's still very much GW and historics over here (Scotland/UK). I think I've seen one RPG store with Warmachine stuff, and no infinity anywhere. I try to go to most of the local conventions and it's the same story; lots of GW resellers (most 2nd hand though), and lots of historics, but very little else in terms of sci-fi.

You shoud try salute, great way of getting into all scifi trends etc.

I've been toying with visiting salute, but it'd involve flights and overnight stays so becomes painfully expensive even before I go mad at the stalls

I can imagine that, travelling in the UK is quite expensive. If you manage to find the extra cash you will not regret what salute has to offer, its something memorable and I cannot recall any better place to be introduced to hundreds of new ranges, games etc.

hotsauceman1 wrote:See, That is what Ticks me off, People say PP is cheaper, it is not. I still see gigantically stupid prices. It may only costt 100$ to get in, But it will cost you the same to expand as it would a GW game.

Here we go again

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
See, That is what Ticks me off, People say PP is cheaper, it is not. I still see gigantically stupid prices. It may only costt 100$ to get in, But it will cost you the same to expand as it would a GW game.

You are wrong.

We have more 40k players at our LGS, and GW stuff probably sells more, but at tournaments we tend to get a better turnout for WMH. I'm not sure if this means there are more competitive WMH players or not, but thats certainly what it seems llke.